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tikificTitle: Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Part 7 of You Got the Silver)
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Fallen!Cas, Benny, Sam
Warnings: Cursing. No beta.
Word Count: 2,000
Summary: The boys tangle with an angry mermaid and dish up Italian sausage.
Notes: This is the end of this story, though I might have another story, set in this universe, later.
Dean stared up at the angry sea witch, Tiamat, who had begun flapping her wings impatiently. “What is the first question, human?” she demanded, he voice an angry purr.
“Uhhh. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” was the only thing that came to mind.
Tiamat licked her lips with a forked tongue. “African or European swallow?”
“European?” said Dean.
Tiamat flapped her wings, hovering up over the deck. “Eleven meters per second. Next question?”
“Shit,” muttered Dean, who hadn’t expected a mermaid to be a fan of British comedy, much less an ornithologist.
Benny winked at Dean. “Here's one of my old favorites. Why is a raven like a writing desk?” But Cas shook his head at Benny.
Tiamat rolled her eyes. “Because there is a B in both and an N in neither.”
“Uh. Oh,” said Benny. “Yeah.”
“Wait, was that an answer?” asked Dean.
“Next question!” rasped Tiamat. “This is your last one.” Her wings were wide and terrible, and her teeth were pointed.
Cas pointed to Dean. “Tiamat. Answer truly. What does Dean have in his pocket?”
Tiamat seized Dean by the arm. “Empty your pockets!”
“What?” asked Benny. “Wait, that ain't the way it's played!” To his surprise, Cas held him back.
Dean sent a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a key. It was the one Janus had given him.
All three men cowered and covered their ears as Tiamat emitted an ear-piercing scream. She flapped her wings and, quick as a flash, flew away.
“What the hell?” asked Dean.
“I thought so,” said Cas.
“You thought what exactly?” asked Dean just as the boat was nearly swamped by a large, angry wave.
“She's causing a storm. They do that when they're pissed,” Benny explained.
“Can you get us the fuck out of here?” asked Dean.
“I'll try, brother.”
“I don't know what the key is, Dean,” said Cas. “But I suspected Janus was giving it to us not so much to help us as to get rid of it.”
“I'm keeping a cursed key? Oh hey, great to know.”
“It proved helpful.”
“Yeah, if we don't die. Benny, step on it! Or whatever the fuck you do in a boat!”
Benny, who had been frantically trying to get the boat turned about, now hit the throttle. The engine roared, and the ship accelerated for a few moments. But then it once again lurched to a halt as they all three saw what was looming ahead of them.
It was Tiamat. Only there was now no possible way she would have fit on the deck of Benny's boat, as she was now many stories tall, and not looking like she was in a good mood.
Cas fell down to the deck, scrunched his eyes closed, and put his hands on his temples.
“I don't think prayer is gonna do a whole hell of a lot now, Cas!” Dean told him.
“You got any other suggestions, Dean? Because I think we’d like to hear them now,” asked Benny as Tiamat opened her cavernous, pointy-toothed maw to strike.
“Baby!”
Tiamat spun around, causing another wave to jostle the little boat. Benny and Dean were both thrown to the deck. Dean scrambled to his feet to view an extra-large version of the pizza-loving Chaos, dressed in a very large tailored suit, and holding an equally tremendous bouquet of flowers as well as a gargantuan heart-shaped box of candy.
“What are you doing here?” Tiamat asked him, flipping her tangled hair in agitation. “I told you never to call me again.”
“Tia, baby! You're my lady! How can we let a little tablet get between us?”
“Where the hell did he come from?” whispered Dean.
“I called to him,” said Cas, rubbing his head.
“No shit?”
“I thought if I can still hear police calls, perhaps I could also send out communications?”
“Nice one, Cas,” said Benny.
“Can I have an aspirin, Dean?” asked Cas, cradling his forehead.
“You can have the whole fucking bottle. In fact, when we get back, if we get back, we'll stop on the way and hold up a pharmacy.”
“Can I be in on this?” asked Benny. “Can y'all rob a blood bank too?”
“Yeah, a pharmacy and a blood bank, and we'll also jaywalk and keep library books out past the date.”
Benny's grin showed pointed teeth. “You're one badass mother, Dean.”
“Oh, wait,” said Dean, who suddenly looked up at Chaos and Tiamat as the waves broke and the boat once again tipped dangerously. “Uh, what are they doing?”
“I think it's pretty damned clear what they're doing,” chuckled Benny.
Dean, Cas and Benny watched in silence for a long moment while Chaos and Tiamat rather spectacularly reconciled.
“So that's how you do it,” muttered Dean. “With the tail, I mean.”
“I had always wondered,” said Benny.
“Benny,” said Cas. “Do you suppose, while they are distracted...?”
“Oh, yeah, right!” said Dean.
Benny ran to the wheel and hit the throttle once again.
“Thanks for the lift, Benny,” said Dean as he and Cas scrambled out of Benny’s rattletrap of a truck in front of the Men of Letters headquarters
“No problem, brother,” laughed Benny. Leaving the engine on, he pulled the creaking parking brake and hopped out as well, leaning an elbow on the cab. “That was fun! Though it’s probably the last time I’m tangling with a mermaid for the foreseeable future.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Dean.
“And…. I'm awful sorry about Sam. I know you were trying to trade in favors.”
Dean crossed his arms and gave a quick nod. “We’ll find a way.”
“I am sorry I could not be more help,” Cas told Dean. “I have so few of my powers....”
“Hey, you did okay,” said Dean.
“Cas. Brother. Like my daddy always said, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Cas tilted his head and frowned at Benny, struggling to divine the equine insult that was inevitably embedded in his statement.
Benny leaned on the cab. “What I’d give to be human. Again. What I’m saying is, don’t knock it.”
Cas nodded.
“We’d invite you in…” said Dean awkwardly.
“You’re probably heavily warded against blood-sucking fiends. Like me. That’s all right. I don’t take no insult.”
Dean looked at the ground. “It’s warded against everything but pizza-loving Greek gods. We could….“
“We should make a vague promise to see Benny on some subsequent date, for an occasion that did not involve consumption of food, and did not take place in the bunker!” Cas ventured.
“Yeah. That!”
Benny laughed. “You two keep your noses clean, hear?” And then he jumped back into the truck and was off with a honk and a wave.
“Do you smell that?” asked Dean as he and Cas opened the door.
“Is that … Italian sausage?” said Cas, sniffing the air. His smile was pure bliss.
The source of the piquant aroma was soon apparent: stacked up on the dining room table were at least a dozen still-steaming pizza boxes.
“Well, I guess at least we know who this is from,” said Dean.
Cas picked up the note taped to one of the boxes and began to read aloud. “Thanks for your help with my lady. Here is something back for you. Rock on. Yours, Chaos. P.S. Dudes, that is the key to Pandora's box. Be careful with that shit. -K.”
Dean pulled the key out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “Pandora's box? No shit?”
Cas nodded. “If there's a key, there's got to be a lock,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Dean pulled a face and tossed the key into a ceramic Hamm’s Beer ashtray full of keys on the counter, and opened the top pizza box. “Later for you, Pandora. So what do you want on your pizza? Pepperoni, or evil?”
“Where is the Italian sausage?” asked Cas hopefully.
The front door clicked. Dean and Cas looked up, pizza forgotten, weapons drawn.
“Uh. Anybody home?” said a very weary voice.
“Oh my god,” said Dean, dropping his gun and running for the door.
“Sam.”
“Sam?”
“Sammy!”
“What?” grunted Sam. He was riding in the Impala's back seat, devoting his full attention to the contents of the canvas bag opened on the seat beside him.
“Look, Sammy, it's just, we're worried about you.”
Sam regarded the clip in his Taurus 99. Dean was looking up in the rear view mirror, while Cas had half turned around in the passenger seat to regard him. “Mom. Dad. I was trapped in Heaven. With Cas's brothers and sisters. For almost a year. I want to shoot things.”
“I can see that,” said Cas, shrugging at Dean.
“Sammy. That's fine, it's just-”
“And why is the angel riding shotgun?”
Dean and Cas shared a look. “Oh, uh,” said Dean. “I guess we just got used to doing things this way.”
“I could drive,” offered Cas with a slight smile.
Sam was hanging on the back of the front bench seat. “You let Cas drive the car?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Why not?” Cas asked Dean.
“Cas! Come on. We're doing an intervention here. Let's keep a united front!”
Castiel nodded and turned around to face Sam. “Sam. Your brother is concerned that you are pushing yourself too hard.”
“Wait!” said Dean. “I'm worried? We're both worried. Aren't we?”
“I was attempting to restate and validate your feelings on this matter so Sam could hear and understand them.”
“Feelings?” asked Sam. “Dean, you don't have feelings. What the fuck went on while I was away?”
“The fact that we're discussing this so openly causes me to feel encouraged,” said Cas.
“Cas: no more napping in the Men of Letters self-help section. Sam: it's okay that you were annoyed by the angels, but you need to eat and sleep as well as the gun range. And, I dunno, maybe find a girl?”
“Is that what you did, Dean?” asked Sam, leaning back.
Cas and Dean exchanged a glance. A rather uncomfortably long glance, as far as Sam was concerned. “Dean! Could you look at the road already?”
“Ow!” said Cas, who pitched forward, head in his hands.
“Hey Cas! Are you okay?” asked Sam.
“Police radio,” said Dean.
“What? He can still hear that?”
“It’s just waves. What's the word, Cas?” asked Dean.
“I need several bottles of aspirin. And maybe some absinth,” Cas told him, cradling his head.
“You can have two aspirin and an orgy.”
“All right.”
“As long as I'm the only one invited to the orgy.”
“What did the police radio say, Cas?” asked Sam impatiently.
“There was a chemical spill of unknown origin. The morgue has a number of dead bodies. Had a number of dead bodies.”
Dean actually turned all the way around to look at Sam. “Holy fuck zombies?” he asked Cas.
Cas nodded.
“Turn. The. Fucking. Car. Around. NOW!” ordered Sam.
He didn't have to ask twice.
“Twenty-seven.”
“Oh, you did not.”
“Did so,” said Cas, elbows on the table, chin in hands, smug look on his face. “How many did you get, Sam? What's that? I didn't hear you.”
“Twenty-two.” Sam pouted as Cas smiled smugly. “And when did you get so good with a gun?”
“Practice. Makes perfect.”
“What time does the gun range open?”
“Soup’s on!” Dean had just appeared in the dining room holding a steaming casserole dish with two oversized oven mitts. He set it down in the middle of the table.
“Is this hot chick lasagna?” inquired Cas.
“Huh, looks like brain spatter,” laughed Sam, who was poking at a sausage with a large serving spoon.
“No zombie talk during dinner,” huffed Dean.
“Yes, Mooooom,” grumbled Sam.
“Wait,” said Dean. “You can't call me that.”
“You've never objected before,” said Sam, dipping the spoon into the dish.
Dean slapped at Sam's hand. “I thought when you were calling us Mom and Dad, you were calling him Mom,” he explained, pointing at Cas.
“Dean,” said Sam, shaking his hurt hand. “Cas just nailed twenty-seven head shots. And … look at you!”
Dean gazed down at the rather loud floral apron he happened to be wearing. He frowned and tore it off, and sat down next to Sam.
“Eat your hot chick lasagna.”
“I like Italian sausages,” said Cas, holding up his plate.
“And you … don’t start!”
“What?” asked Cas curiously as Sam howled with laughter.
And so the boys ate. And bickered.
And meanwhile, across the room, a key sitting neglected in a Hamm’s beer ashtray began to softly glow.
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Fallen!Cas, Benny, Sam
Warnings: Cursing. No beta.
Word Count: 2,000
Summary: The boys tangle with an angry mermaid and dish up Italian sausage.
Notes: This is the end of this story, though I might have another story, set in this universe, later.
Dean stared up at the angry sea witch, Tiamat, who had begun flapping her wings impatiently. “What is the first question, human?” she demanded, he voice an angry purr.
“Uhhh. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” was the only thing that came to mind.
Tiamat licked her lips with a forked tongue. “African or European swallow?”
“European?” said Dean.
Tiamat flapped her wings, hovering up over the deck. “Eleven meters per second. Next question?”
“Shit,” muttered Dean, who hadn’t expected a mermaid to be a fan of British comedy, much less an ornithologist.
Benny winked at Dean. “Here's one of my old favorites. Why is a raven like a writing desk?” But Cas shook his head at Benny.
Tiamat rolled her eyes. “Because there is a B in both and an N in neither.”
“Uh. Oh,” said Benny. “Yeah.”
“Wait, was that an answer?” asked Dean.
“Next question!” rasped Tiamat. “This is your last one.” Her wings were wide and terrible, and her teeth were pointed.
Cas pointed to Dean. “Tiamat. Answer truly. What does Dean have in his pocket?”
Tiamat seized Dean by the arm. “Empty your pockets!”
“What?” asked Benny. “Wait, that ain't the way it's played!” To his surprise, Cas held him back.
Dean sent a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a key. It was the one Janus had given him.
All three men cowered and covered their ears as Tiamat emitted an ear-piercing scream. She flapped her wings and, quick as a flash, flew away.
“What the hell?” asked Dean.
“I thought so,” said Cas.
“You thought what exactly?” asked Dean just as the boat was nearly swamped by a large, angry wave.
“She's causing a storm. They do that when they're pissed,” Benny explained.
“Can you get us the fuck out of here?” asked Dean.
“I'll try, brother.”
“I don't know what the key is, Dean,” said Cas. “But I suspected Janus was giving it to us not so much to help us as to get rid of it.”
“I'm keeping a cursed key? Oh hey, great to know.”
“It proved helpful.”
“Yeah, if we don't die. Benny, step on it! Or whatever the fuck you do in a boat!”
Benny, who had been frantically trying to get the boat turned about, now hit the throttle. The engine roared, and the ship accelerated for a few moments. But then it once again lurched to a halt as they all three saw what was looming ahead of them.
It was Tiamat. Only there was now no possible way she would have fit on the deck of Benny's boat, as she was now many stories tall, and not looking like she was in a good mood.
Cas fell down to the deck, scrunched his eyes closed, and put his hands on his temples.
“I don't think prayer is gonna do a whole hell of a lot now, Cas!” Dean told him.
“You got any other suggestions, Dean? Because I think we’d like to hear them now,” asked Benny as Tiamat opened her cavernous, pointy-toothed maw to strike.
“Baby!”
Tiamat spun around, causing another wave to jostle the little boat. Benny and Dean were both thrown to the deck. Dean scrambled to his feet to view an extra-large version of the pizza-loving Chaos, dressed in a very large tailored suit, and holding an equally tremendous bouquet of flowers as well as a gargantuan heart-shaped box of candy.
“What are you doing here?” Tiamat asked him, flipping her tangled hair in agitation. “I told you never to call me again.”
“Tia, baby! You're my lady! How can we let a little tablet get between us?”
“Where the hell did he come from?” whispered Dean.
“I called to him,” said Cas, rubbing his head.
“No shit?”
“I thought if I can still hear police calls, perhaps I could also send out communications?”
“Nice one, Cas,” said Benny.
“Can I have an aspirin, Dean?” asked Cas, cradling his forehead.
“You can have the whole fucking bottle. In fact, when we get back, if we get back, we'll stop on the way and hold up a pharmacy.”
“Can I be in on this?” asked Benny. “Can y'all rob a blood bank too?”
“Yeah, a pharmacy and a blood bank, and we'll also jaywalk and keep library books out past the date.”
Benny's grin showed pointed teeth. “You're one badass mother, Dean.”
“Oh, wait,” said Dean, who suddenly looked up at Chaos and Tiamat as the waves broke and the boat once again tipped dangerously. “Uh, what are they doing?”
“I think it's pretty damned clear what they're doing,” chuckled Benny.
Dean, Cas and Benny watched in silence for a long moment while Chaos and Tiamat rather spectacularly reconciled.
“So that's how you do it,” muttered Dean. “With the tail, I mean.”
“I had always wondered,” said Benny.
“Benny,” said Cas. “Do you suppose, while they are distracted...?”
“Oh, yeah, right!” said Dean.
Benny ran to the wheel and hit the throttle once again.
“Thanks for the lift, Benny,” said Dean as he and Cas scrambled out of Benny’s rattletrap of a truck in front of the Men of Letters headquarters
“No problem, brother,” laughed Benny. Leaving the engine on, he pulled the creaking parking brake and hopped out as well, leaning an elbow on the cab. “That was fun! Though it’s probably the last time I’m tangling with a mermaid for the foreseeable future.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Dean.
“And…. I'm awful sorry about Sam. I know you were trying to trade in favors.”
Dean crossed his arms and gave a quick nod. “We’ll find a way.”
“I am sorry I could not be more help,” Cas told Dean. “I have so few of my powers....”
“Hey, you did okay,” said Dean.
“Cas. Brother. Like my daddy always said, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Cas tilted his head and frowned at Benny, struggling to divine the equine insult that was inevitably embedded in his statement.
Benny leaned on the cab. “What I’d give to be human. Again. What I’m saying is, don’t knock it.”
Cas nodded.
“We’d invite you in…” said Dean awkwardly.
“You’re probably heavily warded against blood-sucking fiends. Like me. That’s all right. I don’t take no insult.”
Dean looked at the ground. “It’s warded against everything but pizza-loving Greek gods. We could….“
“We should make a vague promise to see Benny on some subsequent date, for an occasion that did not involve consumption of food, and did not take place in the bunker!” Cas ventured.
“Yeah. That!”
Benny laughed. “You two keep your noses clean, hear?” And then he jumped back into the truck and was off with a honk and a wave.
“Do you smell that?” asked Dean as he and Cas opened the door.
“Is that … Italian sausage?” said Cas, sniffing the air. His smile was pure bliss.
The source of the piquant aroma was soon apparent: stacked up on the dining room table were at least a dozen still-steaming pizza boxes.
“Well, I guess at least we know who this is from,” said Dean.
Cas picked up the note taped to one of the boxes and began to read aloud. “Thanks for your help with my lady. Here is something back for you. Rock on. Yours, Chaos. P.S. Dudes, that is the key to Pandora's box. Be careful with that shit. -K.”
Dean pulled the key out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “Pandora's box? No shit?”
Cas nodded. “If there's a key, there's got to be a lock,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Dean pulled a face and tossed the key into a ceramic Hamm’s Beer ashtray full of keys on the counter, and opened the top pizza box. “Later for you, Pandora. So what do you want on your pizza? Pepperoni, or evil?”
“Where is the Italian sausage?” asked Cas hopefully.
The front door clicked. Dean and Cas looked up, pizza forgotten, weapons drawn.
“Uh. Anybody home?” said a very weary voice.
“Oh my god,” said Dean, dropping his gun and running for the door.
“Sam.”
“Sam?”
“Sammy!”
“What?” grunted Sam. He was riding in the Impala's back seat, devoting his full attention to the contents of the canvas bag opened on the seat beside him.
“Look, Sammy, it's just, we're worried about you.”
Sam regarded the clip in his Taurus 99. Dean was looking up in the rear view mirror, while Cas had half turned around in the passenger seat to regard him. “Mom. Dad. I was trapped in Heaven. With Cas's brothers and sisters. For almost a year. I want to shoot things.”
“I can see that,” said Cas, shrugging at Dean.
“Sammy. That's fine, it's just-”
“And why is the angel riding shotgun?”
Dean and Cas shared a look. “Oh, uh,” said Dean. “I guess we just got used to doing things this way.”
“I could drive,” offered Cas with a slight smile.
Sam was hanging on the back of the front bench seat. “You let Cas drive the car?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Why not?” Cas asked Dean.
“Cas! Come on. We're doing an intervention here. Let's keep a united front!”
Castiel nodded and turned around to face Sam. “Sam. Your brother is concerned that you are pushing yourself too hard.”
“Wait!” said Dean. “I'm worried? We're both worried. Aren't we?”
“I was attempting to restate and validate your feelings on this matter so Sam could hear and understand them.”
“Feelings?” asked Sam. “Dean, you don't have feelings. What the fuck went on while I was away?”
“The fact that we're discussing this so openly causes me to feel encouraged,” said Cas.
“Cas: no more napping in the Men of Letters self-help section. Sam: it's okay that you were annoyed by the angels, but you need to eat and sleep as well as the gun range. And, I dunno, maybe find a girl?”
“Is that what you did, Dean?” asked Sam, leaning back.
Cas and Dean exchanged a glance. A rather uncomfortably long glance, as far as Sam was concerned. “Dean! Could you look at the road already?”
“Ow!” said Cas, who pitched forward, head in his hands.
“Hey Cas! Are you okay?” asked Sam.
“Police radio,” said Dean.
“What? He can still hear that?”
“It’s just waves. What's the word, Cas?” asked Dean.
“I need several bottles of aspirin. And maybe some absinth,” Cas told him, cradling his head.
“You can have two aspirin and an orgy.”
“All right.”
“As long as I'm the only one invited to the orgy.”
“What did the police radio say, Cas?” asked Sam impatiently.
“There was a chemical spill of unknown origin. The morgue has a number of dead bodies. Had a number of dead bodies.”
Dean actually turned all the way around to look at Sam. “Holy fuck zombies?” he asked Cas.
Cas nodded.
“Turn. The. Fucking. Car. Around. NOW!” ordered Sam.
He didn't have to ask twice.
“Twenty-seven.”
“Oh, you did not.”
“Did so,” said Cas, elbows on the table, chin in hands, smug look on his face. “How many did you get, Sam? What's that? I didn't hear you.”
“Twenty-two.” Sam pouted as Cas smiled smugly. “And when did you get so good with a gun?”
“Practice. Makes perfect.”
“What time does the gun range open?”
“Soup’s on!” Dean had just appeared in the dining room holding a steaming casserole dish with two oversized oven mitts. He set it down in the middle of the table.
“Is this hot chick lasagna?” inquired Cas.
“Huh, looks like brain spatter,” laughed Sam, who was poking at a sausage with a large serving spoon.
“No zombie talk during dinner,” huffed Dean.
“Yes, Mooooom,” grumbled Sam.
“Wait,” said Dean. “You can't call me that.”
“You've never objected before,” said Sam, dipping the spoon into the dish.
Dean slapped at Sam's hand. “I thought when you were calling us Mom and Dad, you were calling him Mom,” he explained, pointing at Cas.
“Dean,” said Sam, shaking his hurt hand. “Cas just nailed twenty-seven head shots. And … look at you!”
Dean gazed down at the rather loud floral apron he happened to be wearing. He frowned and tore it off, and sat down next to Sam.
“Eat your hot chick lasagna.”
“I like Italian sausages,” said Cas, holding up his plate.
“And you … don’t start!”
“What?” asked Cas curiously as Sam howled with laughter.
And so the boys ate. And bickered.
And meanwhile, across the room, a key sitting neglected in a Hamm’s beer ashtray began to softly glow.
